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A Kennedy Is Arraigned Over a Dispute at a Westchester Hospital

Douglas Kennedy, the youngest son of Robert F. Kennedy, the senator from New York who was assassinated in 1968, has been arraigned on charges resulting from a confrontation that began as he tried to take his newborn son out of a Westchester County hospital.

Two nurses said they were injured by Mr. Kennedy’s actions. A lawyer for Mr. Kennedy gave a different account of what happened and said his client would fight the charges, two counts of harassment as well as one of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

According to a complaint filed in Mount Kisco Village Court, Mr. Kennedy, 44, defied the nurses’ orders on Jan. 7 by trying to walk out of Northern Westchester Hospital with his son, who had been born two days earlier. During an ensuing argument, the complaint said, Mr. Kennedy twisted an arm of one of the nurses as she blocked a doorway, and kicked the other nurse.

Mr. Kennedy was arrested. He was arraigned on Thursday.

Douglas Kennedy with his wife Molly and their newborn son, Bo.

In a statement released with his wife, Molly, Mr. Kennedy, a Fox News reporter, denied any wrongdoing and said he had wanted only to take his newborn son, Bo, out “for fresh air” when a nurse attempted to “grab our child out of his father’s arms.”

Mr. Kennedy’s lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb, said Saturday that one nurse was “lunging to grab the child” during the scuffle. Mr. Kennedy, he said, was only trying to protect his son.

“It wasn’t a kick,” Mr. Gottlieb said. “He lifts his knee, she runs into that knee, and it’s that contact that then propels her or throws her back.”

Elliot H. Taub, who is representing the nurses, Anna Margaret Lane and Cari Maleman Luciano, denied that any lunging had occurred and said the nurses had been hurt as a result of Mr. Kennedy’s actions. Ms. Lane, he said, had pain in an arm and Ms. Luciano had pain in her pelvis and neck.

Mr. Taub said his clients were “probably” going to pursue a civil case against Mr. Kennedy.

Dr. Timothy Haydock, a friend of the Kennedy family and an emergency room physician at the hospital, said in a statement that he had been present during the confrontation and saw the nurses as “the only aggressors.” Before the episode, he said, other nurses had agreed that taking the baby outside for a brief time posed no safety risk.

Mr. Taub said no one was allowed to remove newborns from the maternity unit without permission from a medical authority or a discharge order.

“Neither one of those existed,” he said.

The hospital confirmed only that an episode had occurred on Jan. 7 between a patient’s family member and members of the nursing staff.

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